4/9/2023

Exergy

EXERGY: WORK POTENTIAL OF ENERGY

• It would be very desirable to have a property to

enable us to determine the useful work potential
of a given amount of energy at some specified
state
• This property is exergy, which is also called the
availability or available energy
• The work potential of the energy contained in a
system at a specified state is simply the maximum
useful work that can be obtained from the system

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• The work done during a process depends on the

initial state, the final state, and the process path
• In an exergy analysis, the initial state is
specified, and thus it is not a variable
• The work output is maximized when the process
between two specified states is executed in a
reversible manner
• Therefore, all the irreversibilities are
disregarded in determining the work potential
• Finally, the system must be in the dead state at
the end of the process to maximize the work
output

• A system is said to be in the dead state when it is

in thermodynamic equilibrium with the
environment it is in!
• At the dead state, a system is at the temperature
and pressure of its environment (in thermal and
mechanical equilibrium)
• It has no kinetic or potential energy relative to
the environment (zero velocity and zero elevation
above a reference level); and it does not react
with the environment (chemically inert)
• Also, there are no unbalanced magnetic,
electrical, and surface tension effects between
the system and its surroundings, if these are
relevant to the situation at hand!

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• The properties of a system at the dead state

are denoted by subscript zero, for example, P0,
T0, h0, u0, and s0
• Unless specified otherwise, the dead state
temperature and pressure are taken to be T0
25°C (77°F) and P0 1 atm (101.325 kPa or
14.7 psia)
• A system has zero exergy at the dead state

• By definition, surroundings are everything

outside the system boundaries
• The immediate surroundings refer to the
portion of the surroundings that is affected by
the process
• Environment refers to the region beyond the
immediate surroundings whose properties are
not affected by the process at any point
• Any irreversibilities during a process occur
within the system and its immediate
surroundings, and the environment is free of
any irreversibilities

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• A system delivers the maximum possible work as

it undergoes a reversible process from the
specified initial state to the state of its
environment, that is, the dead state
• This represents the useful work potential of the
system at the specified state and is called exergy
• Kinetic energy is a form of mechanical energy,
and thus it can be converted to work entirely.
• Work potential or exergy of the kinetic energy of
a system is equal to the kinetic energy itself
regardless of the temperature and pressure of
the environment

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REVERSIBLE WORK AND IRREVERSIBILITY

• The property exergy serves as a valuable tool in

determining the quality of energy and comparing
the work potentials of different energy sources or
systems
• The evaluation of exergy alone, however, is not
sufficient for studying engineering devices
operating between two fixed states.
• This is because when evaluating exergy, the final
state is always assumed to be the dead state,
which is hardly ever the case for actual
engineering systems.

• The work done by work-producing devices is not always

entirely in a usable form.
• For example, when a gas in a piston–cylinder device expands,
part of the work done by the gas is used to push the
atmospheric air out of the way of the piston
• This work, which cannot be recovered and utilized for any
useful purpose

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Reversible Work
• Reversible work Wrev is defined as the maximum
amount of useful work that can be produced (or the
minimum work that needs to be supplied) as a system
undergoes a process between the specified initial and
final states.
• This is the useful work output (or input) obtained (or
expended) when the process between the initial and
final states is executed in a totally reversible manner
• When the final state is the dead state, the reversible
work equals exergy
• For processes that require work, reversible work
represents the minimum amount of work necessary to
carry out that process

• Any difference between the reversible work

Wrev and the useful work Wu is due to the
irreversibilities present during the process,
and this difference is called irreversibility (I)

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• For a totally reversible process, the irreversibility

is zero! (Why?)
• Irreversibility is a positive quantity for all actual
(irreversible) processes
• Irreversibility can be viewed as the ‘wasted work
potential’ or the ‘lost opportunity’ to do work!
• The smaller the irreversibility associated with a
process, the greater the work that is produced (or
the smaller the work that is consumed)
• The performance of a system can be improved by
minimizing the irreversibility associated with it

SECOND LAW EFFICIENCY, ηII

• The first law efficiency, makes no reference to the best
possible performance, and thus it may be misleading
• Consider two heat engines, both having a thermal efficiency
of 30%
• One of the engines (engine A) is supplied with heat from a
source at 600 K, and the other one (engine B) from a source at
1000 K. Both engines reject heat to a medium at 300 K
• These engines, at best, can perform as reversible engines, in
which case their efficiencies would be?

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Engine B has a greater work potential available to it

Engine B is performing poorly relative to engine A even

though both have the same thermal efficiency!

It is obvious from this example that the first-law

efficiency alone is not a realistic measure of
performance of engineering devices.

We define a second-law efficiency ηII as the ratio of

the actual thermal efficiency to the maximum possible
(reversible) thermal efficiency under the same conditions

The second-law efficiency can also be expressed as

the ratio of the useful work output and the
maximum possible (reversible) work output

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• We can also define a second-law efficiency for

work-consuming, non-cyclic (such as
compressors) and cyclic devices (such as
refrigerators) as the ratio of the minimum
(reversible) work input to the useful work
input

the way we defined the second-law efficiency, its value cannot exceed
100 percent.

Energy and Exergy

Energy
Dependent on properties of only matter or
energy flow, and independent of
environment properties
Has values different from zero when in
equilibrium with the environment
Conserved for all processes, based on the
FLT
Can be neither destroyed nor produced
Appears in many forms
Exergy
Dependent on properties of both matter
or energy flow and the environment
Equal to zero when in the dead state by
virtue of being in complete equilibrium
with the environment
Conserved for reversible processes and
not conserved for real processes (where
it is partly or completely destroyed due
to irreversibilities), based on the SLT
Can be neither destroyed nor produced
in a reversible process, but is always
destroyed (consumed) in an irreversible
process
Appears in many forms

A measure of quantity only A measure of quantity and quality